Architecting Security for Digital Transformation

The country is witnessing a great push for transforming the economy to a digital economy. Significant steps have been taken by the public sector, which promise to alter the nature and fabric of public services delivered to the citizens. The Digital India initiative would not only revitalize delivery of these services, but also unleash the potential of private sector lead technology makeover. This transformation is led by digitization of data, experimentations with technology enabled channels, adoption of mobile technologies, choice of using diverse devices and technology enabled transaction processing. Digital transformation is overcoming the problem posed by scale, quantum and complexity. Digital technologies create immense possibilities and unveil many ways to solve a specific business or governance problem. However, in the process they may expand the attack surface, introduce vulnerabilities, weaken the security posture and give birth many new possibilities of exploitation. Trust is a main catalyst for one to execute their personal, societal, business and public service transactions. Digital transformation may shake up this trust, unless security is taken care of. Security should be an inherent component of this transformation. It should be well thought of, structural in nature and organized in a predictable and productive manner.

The architectural process involves thinking in structures, arranging the components in systematic manner, ensuring that the composition delivers maximum benefits, making the structure future proof, striving for productivity and predictability, and finding ways to achieve a high level of governance. Digital transformation calls for in-depth, structural and systematic analysis of security. Derivation of security solution should factor multiple dimensions, aspects and considerations. Distant aspects such as expectations of cyber security, obligation and role of privacy and matters of public policies play a crucial role in organizational security. These aspects demand significant level of attention in the design of security. One needs to be familiar with the techniques, processes and practices to traverse the architectural path of designing security. DSCI Best Practices Meet (BPM), 2015 promises to take drive the participation on this path. Focused on ‘Architecting Security’, BPM 2015 would deliberate on how architectural views, approaches, frameworks, processes and practices work for security and what benefits they yield to security.

Dissecting the problem in a systematic manner is a critical first steps towards architecting. BPM 2015 will investigate a range of contemporary issues catching the attention of managers of security. It will take views on how these issues play at the national, industry and organizational levels, and how an organization can respond to them in a systematic and structured manner. It will examine different solutions provided by market forces as emerged from the experience and categorize them into point or transformative solutions. The character, nature and prospects of transformative solutions would be critically examined for their ability to provide organized, systematized and predictable security.

The two-day deliberations of BPM 2015 will reflect on policy matters, aggregated efforts taken at national and industry levels, proposed industry steps, market response, evolved practices, industry standards and technology designs and see how they play their roles in designing architectures.